


Andrew's Nightmare

by RetrocraftFan (Mislagnissa)



Category: StarCraft (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Despair, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Poverty, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-28 00:34:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20416931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mislagnissa/pseuds/RetrocraftFan
Summary: A boy named Andrew lived in the slums of Antiga with his little brother Luke. Life was harsh and Andrew made the sacrifices necessary to survive. When images of alien invaders appeared on news screens, he never thought much of it. Planets were being glassed, but it seemed so far away from the life that Andrew lived. Until the aliens came to Antiga and that life changed forever.





	Andrew's Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> Angle brackets («») indicate telepathy.

Andrew Fernandez was scoping out a potential john when the air raid sirens went off.

The seventeen-year-old's eyebrow twitched involuntarily. He glanced around absently and raised a hand to shield his eyes when the red glare of the street lights irritated him. Ever since that morning he heard a buzzing in his ears that gave him a constant headache and made it difficult to concentrate.

On the block behind the bench he sat on he saw a gas station. In the parking lot he saw a stringy haired girl with a baby in one arm and a cigarette in the other. She could not have much older than he was, maybe even younger. The girl chatted with an older woman in a pink jacket, whose face was obscured by obscene amounts of makeup.

His own mother Barbara had died when he was young, a casualty of the cholera epidemics ravaging the fringe worlds at the time. His father Robert took the time to hold a funeral and then the two of them joined the hordes of migrants fleeing the colonies.

They ended up making a home on Antiga in one of the shanty towns that sprung up in the wake of so many refugees. There his father met his future step-mother Alessa. One broken condom and accidental pregnancy later, the two held a makeshift shotgun wedding.

Like everything else, it was doomed. Nothing good or gold could stay in the world.

His little brother Luke laid on the bench, covered by a ragged overcoat, with his head cradled in Andrew's lap. The pale eight-year-old shook as coughs wracked his body and sweat trickled down his features. His cold was worsening and he needed medicine soon.

The john had stepped off a bus a few minutes ago and had been making side glances at Andrew. He wore a nice suit and an expensive-looking watch. His hair and beard were free of grease and neatly trimmed. If he was as wealthy as Andrew suspected, he could probably afford to stay clean. He tapped a finger against the roll of condoms in his pocket for reassurance.

The older boy was about to gently push Luke onto the bench when the sirens pierced his ears. He swore under his breath when he saw the john startle and run off, and ditched that thought. Instead, he picked up Luke and tried to remember the location of the nearest shelter. He tried carefully not to needlessly jostle the boy in his arms. He could probably follow the crowds of scared, crying, complaining people… but panic made people do stupid things, whether they were in a crowd or not.

Andrew heard a tremendous crash and felt the ground shake beneath his feet. For a moment he feared he would trip, so he braced himself and prepared to protectively curl around his brother. Fortunately or unfortunately, he stood his ground... and that was why he saw what cast the shadow that suddenly fell across the street.

The red glow of the district's neon lights reflected off the glistening chitin of some gigantic, bloated spider. On five massive legs that seemed far too thin to support its weight, the thing gracefully strode forward like a colossus of myth. It gazed down on the masses of fleeing people with dozens of enormous eyes.

Andrew gasped when one of those eyes looked directly at him. A huge, horizontal pupil fixated on him, blacker than night and deeper than the sea. He felt, more than saw, that something glinted in that endless abyss. He turned around and ran, but barely made twelve strides before both boys were engulfed in a gelatinous mass. They held one another for dear life as the ground receded away from them, then merciful darkness covered their eyes and they knew no more.

* * *

Andrew awoke to a feeling of warmth. It was stiflingly hot and humid and he could feel his wet clothes sticking his skin. The buzzing he had first heard that morning was now deafening. It roared in his ears like the ocean waves he had seen on television. It never came from anywhere around him or from inside his own ears. The buzzing was inside his head, scratching and scratching against his skull as though trying to escape.

He groaned and opened his eyes to the sight of fleshy walls studded with glowing violet lights. He screamed and would have kept screaming until his voice was hoarse. Red and pink muscle stretched everywhere, contracting and expanding with audible breaths. Tiny bugs crawled across the walls, floor and ceiling, constantly chattering and clicking.

Then a shadow fell over him, gliding along on far too many spidery digits to be human. He felt something wet and hot spray across his face, then suddenly become cool and refreshing. Once again darkness covered him and he knew no more.

Andrew awoke a second time. This time he did not scream when he saw the fleshy walls. He took several deep breaths and absently noticed his pulse was oddly calm. He stood up and glanced around for any exits, the violet lights making it easy for him to see his surroundings. He had to find Luke and get out of this horrible place.

He was inside some kind of circular chamber, perhaps the inside of some massive and terrible beast. He saw the entrance to a tunnel, or perhaps an artery, and stepped through it. He did not know how long he walked nor did he give it any thought. He could hear screaming dimly echoing through the tunnels and quickened his pace.

The entire time he felt an unpleasant itching sensation. He absently scratched at his thigh, but the itching did not go away. His thigh was not what itched. He tore off the scraps of his clothes, but the cheap nylon was not the cause either. He could not figure out where the itching was coming from.

A great insect appeared in his path, exiting from a side tunnel. Andrew yelped and tripped in his attempt to stop from running into the beast. He fell to the side, bouncing off the fleshy wall and landing on the floor. The creature turned and looked to him, then slowly scuttled forward on six legs.

Andrew whimpered and tried to crawl away as it came closer. Two pairs of diaphanous wings twitched against its back, seemingly useless in these tight quarters. Its forelegs were shaped like spades and he feared they could easily slice through his soft body. All he could do was gape as those legs wrapped around him.

To his shock, however, the creature gently lifted him up. It brought its eyeless, toothy maw closer and sniffed down his face and chest. Seemingly satisfied, it released him and continued on its way. Andrew stared after its retreating form, completely confused by what had just happened.

He stepped backward and nearly tripped. He quickly pressed his hand against the wall for support, then absently glanced down at his fingers. In the violet light of the crystals, his claws shone like metal against the fleshy wall.

Andrew wandered the fleshy tunnels in a daze. The tunnels curved rightward, leftward, downward, upward, loop de loop and in directions he had no name for. He had no idea how long or how far he wandered either. He was pretty sure that he walked upside-down at least part of the time, too. His bare feet clopped against rocky surfaces, as though he was wearing tap dance shoes.

Constantly his skin prickled and his ears rang. Scratching and shaking his head gave no relief. The dripping walls breathed evenly, which helpfully kept him from feeling too cold, hot, dry or wet. The floors were crawling with tiny creatures that he could not be sure were beetles or squids, which always seemed to move out of his path several steps ahead of his feet. He did not stop to think about how this hellish thermostat kept track.

It took a while before he noticed that the lights were gone. He held his hand up to face. He stood in pitch darkness, but he could see his palm like it was a typical sunny day. The skin was hard and shiny, like one of the tiny bugs he saw flying and crawling around the streets on a typical day. His experimentally wiggled his fingers, but they did not feel any different. He wondered whether he was supposed to feel different.

Andrew kept walking. He heard a moaning sound and stopped. He turned and saw a entrance to a side tunnel. He heard the moaning sound a second time, coming from the side entrance. He stepped toward the opening and his depth perception reoriented him. It was not a side tunnel, but a side chamber. The ring in his ears grew clearer at he drew closer… now he heard voices, wooden yet curious.

"Life-form analysis in progress. Detecting viscous neurological transmitters, oxygenated tissues—"

"Infestation progressing abnormally. Attempting to determine cause."

He saw a fleshy slab in the center of the chamber, like an embalming table in a mortuary. It was surrounded by a circle of figures. Their upright bodies reminded Andrew of the beetles he had played with as a child, but their many long legs reminded him of centipedes. Their heads were shaped like wedges and lined with numerous small, yellow eyes.

"Stress levels increasing. Pain tolerance low. Injecting additional synaptic inhibitor… now."

"Detecting lead, mercury, cadmium, beryllium, brominated flame retardants—"

His common sense told him not to enter the chamber. It was the sort of thing that the redshirts in horror movies did. Yet, was he not the monster in this movie? He stepped to the opening and placed a hand on the edge, but did not step inside. Now the ring sounded more like a buzz.

"Several organs previously removed. Subject missing _ aponeurus superiorus papelbrai _—"

"Contacting outside technical specialist. Forwarding preliminary observations. Awaiting response."

His gaze drifted to the specimen on the slab. A man laid there, moaning weakly. Most of his skin was hard and shiny. Slimy red tentacles had erupted from his mouth and nose, splitting opening the lower half of his face. Andrew briefly lifted a hand to his own face, but pulled it away before his fingertips made contact. He did not want to know.

"Fascinating. These are not organs. What sorcery is this?"

The man on the slab bled from several massive incisions on his face and torso. His eye sockets were empty and bleeding. Long black cables stretched from the sockets to a pair of small metal objects held by one of the examiners. Similar cables spilled out from the incisions and attached to other metal objects.

Andrew realized then what the examiners did. They had removed the poor man's implants... or were trying to. He shivered slightly and his heavy eyelids tingled with phantom pain. He stepped back from the chamber, turned and continued on his way. Before that moment, he was never gladder that he was too poor to afford implants.

"What the hell is going on?" he whispered to himself. "What is this place? Why am I here? Luke… where are you?"

He glanced upward and saw that this section of tunnel was studded with more of the glowing violet crystals.

"Why the hell am I not freaking out right now?"

He passed another chamber with a slab and paused to stare inside. Inside were more of the upright beetle creatures, examining what had once been a woman. One of them carefully sawed off her arm, while another prepared to attach a jointed, cylindrical object ending in a hoof. A third carved open the front of her skull, while a fourth inserted small black wriggling things resembling octopi. When one of the octopi winked at him, Andrew realized it was an eye.

"How do you feel?" asked one of the surgeons.

"A bit strange, I guess," replied the woman.

"Do you feel any pain?"

"No. A bit of tugging, though."

"That is normal. Alert us if the sensation changes."

"If you feel pain, we will inject more inhibitor," added another.

One of the creatures glanced at him.

"Please move along. Your services are not needed here," it said.

Andrew calmly turned back to the tunnel and continued walking. After losing count of his paces, he realized that neither the woman nor her surgeons had moved their mouths. He could not remember if the surgeons even had mouths.

"Again, why the hell am I not freaking out right now?" he asked himself.

He passed a third aperture from which issued a constant, irritating clicking noise. This time Andrew did not spare the chamber a glance. As he left, he overheard what seemed like part of an ongoing conversation. Still he paid it no mind and kept walking. He did not understand what they were talking about. As he thought about it, he began to suspect that these were the invaders. He had heard television broadcasts about aliens invading the core worlds a couple of months before he saw them on Antiga.

The voices had mentioned the Protoss in the third person, so that meant… he was among the Zerg? This did not fit with what he had seen in the broadcasts. That journalist… what was his name again? Michael Daniel Liberty? The Zerg were giant bugs like something out of a video game or a b-movie. They were not… whatever the hell went on here. At least, nobody had known they were.

Andrew wondered what month it was. He did not keep track of time except for what supplies he and Luke needed. He closed his eyes and tried to remember. It had been maybe the 17th or 18th of June when he had seen that thing on Antiga. He wondered how long it had been since then. Days? Weeks? Months?

"Who said that?!"

Andrew whirled around to see nobody. There was no one else in that section tunnel besides him and the tiny scuttling things. He noticed he panted and his heart raced. He tried to take deep breaths to calm himself. This place, whatever it was, must have been messing with his mind.

He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he saw a dark haired woman in a gauzy white dress kneeling in front of him. Her face was turned away, but he would have recognized her anywhere.

"I know you hate me, Luke."

His dead stepmother, Alessa, was right here. She thought he was his little brother. Was he hallucinating again or were ghosts and other paranormal shit real too?

"Can you forgive me, Luke?"

Andrew remained silent.

"Luke?" the specter repeated. "I know it's been lonely for you."

Andrew clenched his fist. He knew this was not real, this was all a nightmare, and he would wake up soon... or so he told himself.

"Did you hear? Luke?"

She turned to look at him. Before their gazes could meet, his claws sliced through her throat. The specter vanished like smoke on the wind.

Andrew stood there, panting like a dog. He could not wake up from this nightmare. Why could he not wake up?

A booming voice reverberated through his skull, deeper than the seas and brighter than the suns. It was so loud that he thought he would fall to his knees in pain, but he just… did not.

He saw a great eye before him. It was suspended in endless blackness by thick cords of pink muscle. A golden iris expanded and contracted around an elliptical pupil, like that of a cat or a snake. It stared directly at him, through him, beyond him.

"W-what the hell… what are you?"

Images of planets, forests, oceans, cities and so much more flashed across his retinas. He saw masses of people run screaming from titanic monsters and scuttling hounds. He saw great golden ships rain down beams of heavenly fire. He heard millions of voices cry out at once, then suddenly go silent.

"Where's Luke? Where's my little brother?!"

Another image flashed across his retinas. He saw a fleshy growth, dozens of meters in size, covered in translucent sacs of gelatin... like angry pustules on a deformed face. Within each sac slept a shiny-skinned creature that might once have been human. His gaze fixed on one face in particular. Inside of one of the sacs, sleeping peacefully like a fetus in its womb, was Luke.

Andrew sank to his knees. He closed his eyes, but the sights did not vanish. He felt warm tears fall freely down his face. It was unmanly, but he did not give a flying fuck about masculinity anymore.

"Please. Give him back. I'll do anything."

Andrew heard something lumber into the tunnel from behind him. He slowly stood up and glanced back at it.

He saw a large, fleshy mound crowned by flat overlapping plates. It scuttled forward on numerously spindly limbs like a centipede, while a mass of pink tendrils whipped through the air beneath a set of glowing yellow pinpricks. It stopped just in front of him, then reared back and split open like a gigantic mouth. Its legs and tendrils undulated regularly, as if beckoning to him.

Andrew stepped inside.

* * *

Andrew fell to the ground, covered in slime. He coughed and hacked, forcing the foul substance out of his lungs and vomiting it all over the ground. He barely noticed as the creature that carried him turned and scuttled away. He did not care to repeat the experience. He stood and brushed more slime off his body.

He absently glanced upward. When he did so, he ceased all movement. What he saw looked like a medieval painting of some imagined hell. The sky was black with smoke and illuminated by flaming hail. The ground was covered in a grey mass he could not identify; it stretched in all directions as far as his eyes could see.

In the distance he saw ranges of black mountains and volcanoes spewing plumes of dust and ash for miles into the sky. The horizon that stretched before him was dominated by great structures of bone and muscle. Windowless black towers covered in spikes soared into the sky, obscuring the dim outlines of the moons. Gigantic eyeballs in every imaginable color hung in the sky like moons, looking over their dominion like ambivalent gods. Hearts and lungs and intestines snaked through the fields and rhythmically expanded and contracted like some silent orchestra.

Through it all countless chattering beasts in every shape and size moved. They scuttled through quarries, dragged up great rocks and tossed them into sizzling pools of slime. They flew through the air, crying “tekeli-li!” They floated serenely, singing like whales. They slinked through fronds of grey and violet grass, graceful as cats. They slithered and hissed, gnashed claws and teeth.

«Come and see,» said a voice like thunder.

Andrew felt them all in his mind. Silently they called out to him, whispered sweet nothings in his ear and promised to never abandon him. In that moment he wanted nothing more to than to run forward and join them.

It was too much for Andrew to handle. He crumpled to the ground like a broken doll. He curled his legs against his chest and wrapped his arms around himself.

«Why do you cower?»

What did they expect him to do? Sit around a campfire and sing kumbaya? He could not stand any of this. He just wanted to find Luke and go home.

Flashes of memory danced across his eyes. He saw himself unbuttoning his shirt under leering gazes, kneeling before a pair of slacks, pulling a zipper down, crying into a pillow while—

He pushed the memory aside. He could not go back to that hell. He would never let Luke suffer the nightmare he had lived. It was crazy to even consider going back. Even if he did find Luke and escape to whatever remained of Antiga, the both of them looked like monsters. They would be killed on sight or captured and experimented on. What would he do now? What could he? He had to do something. If he stayed here like this, he knew he would go insane.

«You will fight for us.»

Andrew stretched slowly, feeling his joints pop, and stood up. He saw the swarms: the Zerg. Each breed was different. Their teeth and claws were sharp as diamonds, or their mouths drooled acid and their nostrils puffed smoke. He felt it in every single one of them: they were thirsty for meat, they ached to serve their purpose.

He ached to sink his fangs into the throat of a Protoss zealot, to feel the warm blue blood stain his claws and run down his chest. He wanted to rip out a beating heart and bite into it like an apple. He could not remember the last time he had a fresh apple and not some cheap apple-flavored nutrient bar.

«We remember.»

Andrew felt refreshing, cold juice run down his chin. He felt succulent skin break beneath his teeth. He tasted water and sugar on his tongue. He closed his eyes, shuddered and gasped at the sensations. As if he had been walking through a desert for aeons, eating an apple never felt more amazing.

Yet it paled in comparison to the taste of fresh, steaming Protoss flesh.

His eyes cracked wide open in shock. He was not a killer. Something was very wrong. He was turning into something wrong. Was he?

The Protoss killed Terrans as effortlessly as they killed Zerg. They would not spare him, he realized. The Protoss would not balk at murdering defenseless children. He had to fight. He had to protect Luke. 

«Come and see.»

Andrew turned and walked. He knew unerringly where to go, even though he had never been here before. He passed through the fields of organs until he stood before a great ribcage with tentacles at one end and a mass of cysts at the other. There were other Zerg waiting there, others like him that had once been human. He kept walking and passed through an orifice in the side of the organ thing.

He entered a massive chamber. The walls were lit with green light cast by glowing cysts. The floor was rough and uneven. Everywhere Andrew saw large ovoids that resembled bird eggs or caterpillar cocoons.

Creatures scuttled through the chamber, strange upright beetles like those Andrew had seen in his hallucinations. They had the same wedge-shaped heads and many long spindly limbs. Some clambered along the walls and ceiling like huge spiders.

A large grub-like creature lived there as well, momentarily staring at him with many tiny green eyes before turning its attention to one of the ovoids. Long, many-jointed limbs darted about, examining the ovoid with spidery, blade-like fingers. As it attended its duties, a triangular, jawless mouth twitched just beneath its eyes while a mass of green pustules rhythmically contracted and expanded along its back.

Andrew walked up to one of the ovoids. This one was set in the wall and about his height. The surface was translucent, and he saw something moving inside. As he stopped right in front of it, the details of the creature inside became clear to him.

He saw a human face, but the skin was stripped away. He saw naked muscle twitching and lipless teeth bared. Its lidless eyes stared blankly in front of it, rapidly twitching as it dreamed. Andrew looked the creature over, and saw that fresh, pink chitin was growing across its body.

He heard a wet pop come from his right. He turned and saw another pod, this one torn open to spill amniotic fluid on the grey ground. Another once-human creature stepped out of the pod, but this one was not like him.

Its armor plates of chitin were regular and conformed to its muscles. Its body was not bent, distended or asymmetrical, nor was its face bursting open with tendrils. Its head was covered entirely by a helmet of chitin, with only two glowing eyes visible. It glanced at him and their eyes met.

Andrew glanced down at himself. He saw his oversized and distorted skeleton and muscles, the redundant and nearly useless claws bursting from his back and sides, the tentacles hanging uselessly from his mouth and throat. He felt disgusting and shameful.

«Your turn, brother.»

* * *

I felt warmth all around me. It felt stifling, so I stretched. My limbs barely moved before I felt something in the way. I moved again. This time I pushed hard.

The obstruction gave way and I found myself falling forward. I threw my arms out to catch myself. My hands and knees slammed into a hot, dry ground. My skin felt wet and slimy. I realized that my eyes were closed. I opened them. I blinked rapidly at sudden brightness.

I saw small grubs scuttling around me, brushing small debris into their mandibles with waving tentacles. I saw some of the grubs crawl onto me. I felt their little legs brush against my skin.

I grew uncomfortable crouching on my hands and knees, so I tentatively pulled myself into a sitting position. The little grubs did not seem to notice. My movements did not dislodge them. I did not care to disturb them.

I glanced around. I was surrounded by masses of ovoids, almost like eggs. Behind me was another egg. Its shell was burst open and leaking sterile-smelling slime. Some of the eggs were translucent and I saw something moving inside one. The things inside were too vague to make out.

I glanced upward. Above me was a black sky. I saw the outline of a white sun behind black clouds. I saw a flock of shrieking creatures fly past on leathery wings. Their cry lingered in the air. “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”

I felt the slime washing away. I glanced at the grubs crawling on me. Their pointed tongues darted out to slurp the fluid. Their mandibles crunched down on pieces of broken eggshell. I sat and waited for the grubs to finish cleaning.

When I no longer felt wet and sticky, the grubs crawled away in inching motions. They scattered across the grey, squishy ground and retreated back to the niches between the eggs. I cocked my head as I watched them crawl away. I did understand what I just did.

I pulled myself to my feet. I glanced around and saw a gap in the patch of eggs. I turned to it and bounded forward. I wanted to see what laid beyond.

I saw a large bug glide across the ground on webbed fins. It buzzed and stopped next to one of the eggs. It extended a pair of pincers and grabbed the egg. Then it lifted the egg, turned and glided away.

I tilted my head again as I watched the retreating form. A moment later, my hooves clopped against the ground as I followed after it.

The buzzing bug carried the egg to another field of eggs. It stop in front of a pair of eggs and deposited its cargo. Then it turned and glided away once more. I watched it leave, then glanced at the egg. I glanced at all the eggs surrounding me.

The last field was haphazardly strewn with eggs. This new field was regular: eggs were planted in close patches of three. I walked up to a trio of these eggs. I was not sure, but they looked like they were fusing together. I saw roots extruding from their bottoms and merging into the creep.

I lifted my arm and tentatively placed a claw against the shell. It felt warm and throbbed under my touch. The shell was clear, almost transparent. I could see details of the creatures inside. I saw raw red skin peel off and dissolve. I saw yellow bones flaking away. I saw naked brains and organs floating freely inside the eggs. I saw more of the violet crystals that seemed to be everywhere in this place, slowing growing inside the eggs.

I saw the trio’s naked eyeballs, rolling lidless in their sockets. They glanced at me, then away, then in every direction at random. I remembered something: rapid eye movement. They were dreaming, I thought.

I saw the dreams too. Blackness stretching everywhere, dotted with points of white. A dull grey orb shot through with burning red veins. Bloated lobsters floating serenely through the skies, limbs dangling uselessly below them. A big-headed beast with yellow eyes, growing and grinning with two pairs of toothy jaws. A face obscured by shadow and framed by gossamer. Its eyes opened and burned a baleful yellow.

I tilted my head quizzically and wondered who was dreaming.

«Come! Come one, come all,» said a voice.

I looked up and saw an overlord passing by. An image flashed through my mind’s eye. I saw a crater, far below me, as if I was looking out of a helicopter.

«We are summoned to gather. The prophet demands it,» it said.

I stepped back from the eggs and followed the overlord. Packs of zerglings bounded beside me, chattering happily. We made our way past more fields of eggs and organs and great beasts. I did not track the time, but soon enough I saw the edge of the crater rise into view. I scampered up the bowl without thinking about it, instinctively finding handholds to pull myself up.

I pulled myself over the lip of the bowl. I saw others like me. Some stood, some sat, others clung to outcroppings of rock. They formed a broad circle that lined the inside of the crater. At the center I saw two others, jumping and dancing through the air. I saw sparks fly where their claws met. I took a few steps forward and then stopped.

“What is happening?” I asked.

«You will spar with your brothers. You will prepare for battles to come,» said the overlord.


End file.
